skimmington

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“
Almost at the instant of her fall the rude music of the skimmington ceased.

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Definitions (4)

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  1. A burlesque procession formerly held in ridicule of a henpecked husband; a cavalcade headed by a person on horseback representing the wife, with another representing the husband seated behind her, facing the horse's tail and holding a distaff, while the woman belabored him with a ladle. These were followed by a crowd, hooting and making “rough music” with horns, pans, and cleavers. The word commonly appears in the phrase to ride (the) skimmington. Compare the north-country custom of riding the stang. [Local, Eng.] When I'm in pomp on high processions shown, Like pageants of lord may'r, or skimmington. Oldham, Satires (1685), (Nares.) The Skimmington … has been long discontinued in England, apparently because female rule has become either milder or less frequent than among our ancestors. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, xxi., note.
  2. A disturbance; a riot; a quarrel. There was danger of a skimmington between the great wig and the coif, the former having given a flat lie to the latter. Walpole, Letters (1753), I. 289. (Davies.)
  3. A charivari. [Local, U. S.]

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Examples (6)

  • Almost at the instant of her fall the rude music of the skimmington ceased. —  The Mayor of Casterbridge
  • Up to this time he knew nothing of the skimmington-ride. —  The Mayor of Casterbridge
  • Attorney-general, that there was danger of a skimmington between the great wig and the coif, the former having given a flat lie to the latter. —  The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 2
  • This was barred, and while the landlady was unfastening it the conversation about the skimmington was continued in the sitting-room, and reached his ears. —  The Mayor of Casterbridge
  • Such was the state of things when the current affairs of Casterbridge were interrupted by an event of such magnitude that its influence reached to the lowest social stratum there, stirring the depths of its society simultaneously with the preparations for the skimmington. —  The Mayor of Casterbridge
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Etymologies (1)

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  1. Also skimington, skimmerton, skimitry; supposed to have originated in the name of some forgotten scold.
 

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